Hawk and Dove

"Hello, Satan."

Page picked up something in his hand, and it was a clipboard. "As soon as the alarm went off, we knew you were here. We would have caught all of you if someone hadn't been scrambling the system at the same time. Clever, your little team was. But, we still got the camera recordings of your break-in. And, let's see. Well, since you depleted our stores of the mutant enzyme, deleted our data, and released our test subjects, we have to start from scratch," he said, "Glad we nabbed you. Even though this will only cover one half of our research. Your powers are obviously well developed-"

"What are you even talking about?" Dan interrupted loudly. He felt a swell of pride when Page mentioned all the things his team accomplished, and that made him think that they did get away. He didn't know how long ago all that was, but he hoped by now they were figuring out a way to get Dan back. Because so far this was not going well for him.

The prime minister sighed. "You're aware that the enzyme reacts with mutant blood. We used it for just that reason, to find them, and then we picked a few from a lineup to use for the tests. Usually we pick ones who are unaware of their abilities, or haven't gotten a grasp on them yet. The tests make their mutations apparent enough to study. You probably want to know what the tests are?" he asked Dan. Dan didn't reply, so he simply gestured to Dr. Bisognin. "Tell him," he said.

She cleared her throat. "The tests include watching subject's reactions to different stages of stress and seeing if their mutation adapts at all to relieve said stress. Blood is also drawn so the mutated gene can be carefully studied," she said. That was the most Dan had heard her talk, and she had a lilted accent. Spanish?

"Why do you study the mutations?" Dan asked.

The doctor glanced at Page and he gave a nod. "Might as well tell him. Like I said, we're not keeping him," he said.

She continued. "We are trying to emulate the mutated gene," she said quietly, as if ashamed of the information, "And by increasing the stress in each consecutive test, we are hopeful that mutations will further change and result in evolution."

Dan stared at her. "Evolution? You're... torturing people to try and make them mutate further," he said, talking out loud to get his thoughts together. Without Phil, he had no one to bounce his ideas off of and help him fill in the blanks. "And replicating mutated genes... why?"

Page simply reached his hand over, in front of the doctor, and pressed a button. Without warning a shock shot through the electrodes on Dan's neck and temples, making his entire body feel on fire and not in the good way. A cry escaped his mouth and he tried to cringe away from the shock, but there was nowhere to go. Without his prompting or focus, flames lit in Dan's palms and swallowed his hands. The next second the shock was gone and so was the fire, only a puff of flame remained for a split second. When it was over, Dan stared at his hands as if he'd never seen them before. That was something no one should ever be forced to feel: their own body betraying them.

"That's why," Page continued, a grin on his face that could be described as almost mad, "With just a simple electric shock combined with a little IV drip of saline solution, your power manifests without you having to even think about it. Britain would be the most powerful nation in the world if we could use that, even more so than America. They treat their mutants like heroes who can do as they wish. They're missing out on the bigger picture. These discoveries are breakthroughs that only we have the ability to make."

Dan was breathing hard, the shock still wearing off even though it was only on for less than a minute. "You want to weaponize us?" he said breathlessly.

"No, not you," Page said, rolling his eyes, "You and yours are just the first generation, the guinea pigs. Your powers are obviously already under control. We want to weaponize your genes. By taking your mutations and injecting them into people like our Agent Chapman here," he pointed behind him at the man in the suit, "Combined with the stress, the mutated genes and the genes of the subject will fuse to create, well, a test tube mutant. Like super soldiers. Imagine an entire army of them! We would be unstoppable."